Laramie’s Original Substack post HERE.

NonVeni Mark’s crosspost HERE.

Something strange has happened over the past thirteen years. The same Trads who once defended the papacy now spend their days explaining why Catholics need not listen to it.

People have no idea what they’ve done.

So, with that, I cannot go another day without touching upon something very heavy and significant that was discussed last week on Ann Barnhardt’s podcast. I know that not everyone has time to listen to podcasts, so I’m going to revisit some of the discussion from that day, and I’ll be adding my own two cents as we progress along.

Today: Trad Inc. Defends Bergoglio/Prevost As Though He’s Pope

Popesplainers. A lot of us know what that word means. Such people will defend the idea that Bergoglio and Prevost are popes through thick and thin, no matter what evidence clearly shows they’re wrong. Popesplainer traditionalists are so committed to defending these last two usurpers, that they’ve dismantled the very doctrine of the papacy they thought they were defending. Trad Inc—with their commitment to Bergoglio and Prevost—is literally teaching Catholics that popes can teach error. And they are literally telling you that popes can be safely disregarded.

Barnhardt really hit it out of the park last Thursday:

So now Satan’s got the Trads and the Trad Inc. people arguing against the papacy as well, whereas every single one of them—what would it be, 13, 14 years ago today?—were solid on the papacy. They were sound on the papacy. They knew that somebody had to be in charge. They also clearly—if you read these people’s propaganda—they clearly do not believe in our Lord’s promise. They don’t believe in the Petrine promise. They don’t believe that there is the [Holy Spirit’s] supernatural negative protection.

Clearly they don’t believe that, because they keep on arguing: “Well! Popes can totally teach heresy! Popes can totally do this, popes can totally do that!” They all believed in the supernatural negative protection that our Lord promised to Peter and his legitimate successors. They have to deny it. They have to deny our Lord’s words in the Holy Gospel in order to reconcile their position that Bergoglio and now Prevost are the Vicar of Christ so that they can continue to grift or be employed by the institutional Church—or in the case of clergy and prelates, that they can continue on with their careers and not potentially sacrifice anything.

And of course now we’ve got the whole deal with, apparently, the hierarchy in the SSPX—the upper echelons of SSPX—have that same mindset, which is incomprehensible. And so, they’re in the position where they’re going to do the consecrations of their bishops—which they should, they absolutely should. There’s no pope. Of course it’s a state of emergency exception, of course it is.

But then they’re also trying to reconcile the contradictory positions that “this is not the Catholic Church, but we’re being excommunicated from it, but that doesn’t count.” I mean, it is so irrational and so illogical.
–Barnhardt Podcast Episode #254: There Is No Dead Man’s Switch, podcast timestamp 25:56

What Trad Inc popesplainers are saying today is not what they’d have said at the beginning of Bergoglio’s regime. Let me put it this way. In 2013, these people would speak about the papacy confidently and clearly. They’d defend the Vicar of Christ’s unique authority. They’d insist upon the indefectibility of the Church. They’d reject notions that Catholics could disregard “inconvenient” heretical teachings.

Thirteen years later?

Arguments have changed dramatically. The pontificate is constantly scandalized, and it always looks like Rome is confusing and dividing the faithful. So many people have consequently abandoned their previous certainties. In an effort to explain away this emergency—while simultaneously maintaining everything is quite normal—they’ve developed new theology.

There’s an endless parade of new exceptions, qualifications, and escape hatches concocted to “legitimize” Bergoglio and Prevost’s anti-papacies. “Popes teach error now! Ignore those papal statements!” A good Catholic is supposed to sift, filter, and resist evil somehow. And so now? We have a bitter irony, that men who once defended the papacy now spend their time explaining why Catholics shouldn’t listen to it.

Tomorrow: Trad Inc. Is Your Enemy

So. Let’s suppose that the day finally comes. The day everyone’s been waiting for. Brave cardinals and bishops in the Roman Catholic Church are finally accepting their cross, and they’re coming out and telling us that, yes indeed, Bergoglio and Prevost were fakes, and an evil cabal of men in cardinal positions rigged them into place. And the time has come to denounce them, proclaim these evil men as antipopes, and undo every evil thing that’s transpired since 2013.

What will happen when this time comes? Barnhardt makes it clear:

Well, what’s going to happen if the papacy is restored? And we do get Pope “Saint S.O.B.,” who’s just going to be knocking heads. What are all of the enemies of Jesus Christ and His Holy Church going to do? They’re going to cite every one of these tradding partisans who’s been arguing that the papacy is not important and you don’t have to listen to anything that the pope says, and the pope can teach error.

So when a real pope comes along and says: “Voluntary sodomy is always and everywhere mortal sin. Contraception is mortal sin. Divorce and remarriage is mortal sin.” When a real pope comes back and says this, it is precisely the argumentation of these Trad Inc. partisans that will be used to deny the authority of the papacy. They’re doing Satan’s work.

We’ve been trying to point this out to them for a decade now. It’s been a decade. What excuse could they possibly, possibly have at this point? “That? Well, I never considered it that way!” Oh, bull. You know perfectly well. But you sit down, and you do the calculus, and what’s more important to you is maintaining your income and maintaining your career.

And for some of them, it’s as pathetic as just maintaining their social circles. Really, literally for some of them, that’s all it is—which is sickening, absolutely sickening. The vast majority of them know exactly what we’re dealing with here and just for whatever comfort won’t do anything about it, won’t say anything about it.
–Barnhardt Podcast Episode #254: There Is No Dead Man’s Switch, podcast timestamp 59:07

The satanic enemies of God will NOT be using their own arguments to fight these good cardinals and bishops. To fight the verdict against them, they will NOT be pointing to canon law, making juridical arguments. No citing Voltaire or quoting Karl Marx. They won’t be stereotypically appealing to the French Revolution or waving rainbow flags or anything like that. They won’t blatantly demand destruction of the Catholic Church like some sort of Dr. Evil villain. And there will be no elaborate theological systems of their own or anything like that.

There’ll be no need for any of that. Because SATAN’S ALREADY BENT THE TRAD INC. PEOPLE TO HIS WILL. And Christ’s enemies will have the luxury of using Trad Inc.’s words against whatever authentic Catholics are left.

That is what will happen. That is the fight that is coming. You think someone will wave a magic wand and make the evil go away? Oh no. Trad Inc. and its timid, evasive, just-laugh-it-off, equivocating, mealy-mouthed justifications will have provided EXACTLY the ammunition and cannon fodder to be shot at whatever remnant of Catholics are left for that great battle.

Thank you so very much, popesplainers. You’ve ensured one of the most difficult battles of the era is just right around the corner. You have done this. Your fickle cowardly arguments have built up a golem that will be used to bludgeon the true resistance that will come after this mess. You’ve invested, bit by bit, into our strife and pain. You’ve been an enemy this entire time…we just won’t see it until the fight comes to our door.

We have cried for years: “The Catholic Church is being raped!” And you snickered and sneered and whispered: “No, fools. It was consensual.”

History will not look so fondly on what you have done. Certainly not on that day.